


Too Close for Comfort

by everythingmurky



Series: These Dangerous Extra Thoughts [1]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: Denial, F/M, Introspection, Light Angst, Pining, Season 3, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-12
Updated: 2017-04-12
Packaged: 2018-10-18 05:33:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10610304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/everythingmurky/pseuds/everythingmurky
Summary: Hardy finds himself uncomfortable with how his relationship with Miller has changed.(aka Hardy's reasons for going on that out of character date, the shippy version.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> After the fifth episode, I had this side rant about how out of character the whole date thing was, and I wrote a piece with Hardy and Daisy to explain it, which was my attempt at being closer to canon and gen instead of shippy.
> 
> Shippy, though, always had a voice in the back of my head, and since I'm apparently procrastinating on my Human Nature AU that's holding up my whole series, I wrote this instead.

* * *

He came to the startling and uncomfortable realization that he was too close to Miller.

(And, irritatingly, not close enough, at least not in the way that might seem to matter.)

He hadn't really thought much of it, even though they'd settled into a bit of a routine since his return, old patterns though with maybe a little less hostility on her part. She still got irritated with him, and she never really held that back, but she was the only one on his team that cared to do much with him, still his unofficial liaison with the rest of them. He didn't work with her only because she was the highest rank, or even because she was the most qualified. 

He worked with her because it was _her._

He hadn't allowed himself to give it much thought. He could give a thousand excuses for why he preferred her over the others, and he had, not that anyone had asked for them. He just knew he could supply them, since he'd had the talk with himself enough in his head. Miller was capable, he'd solved Sandbrook with her, and even when she annoyed him she usually had good insights.

Still, it was simple enough to ignore anything else, including allegations from the trial, and push on as he always had. Even early in his career people had assumed he didn't date and didn't have friends, though he did have those that owed him favors.

Miller didn't owe him anything. So far, that held.

Daisy asked him a few things about Miller, but she never asked the most dangerous one, and he never volunteered the answer. He counted it as another possible failure with his daughter, but then she could have been trying to be more subtle about it, her with her suggestion that he let her set him up on that dating app. That, he thought, had effectively settled any Miller question, and it was done.

He hadn't given it another thought until the bloody coffee.

He'd picked up drinks before starting work. Nothing unusual. He'd done it before, several times since he'd been back in Broadchurch, and this time shouldn't have been anything different.

“Say hello to the wife for me.”

Hardy had stopped, staring at the barista in confusion. He swore he'd heard them ask earlier if he wanted the usual. If they knew him well enough to know what his usual was, they should have been aware, even without their obnoxious chit chat, that he wasn't married. He never wore a ring, so why would anyone assume that?

“Excuse me?”

“Ellie. Say hello to her, yeah?”

“Miller's not my wife.”

The barista shrugged. “Work wife, isn't that what they call it these days? Partner? Either way, pass on a hello, would you?”

Hardy had walked off, leaving the drinks behind.

The words had nagged at him ever since, and he could think of nothing else when his mind strayed from the case. He should be worrying about his daughter. He should be thinking of his daughter, how to make sure he remembered lunch dates and dinner and got home before dawn.

Things got worse when he found himself holding her damned scotch egg and coming close to admitting that she was the reason he was back. It wasn't _just_ her, he'd never said that, or thought about it like that, and it _was_ for Daisy. He just didn't think he could be a good dad to her on his own, and not in Sandbrook, not without... Miller.

And there it was. He was too damned close to her. He needed her too much.

So he found a woman on Tinder that seemed nice enough and probably the opposite of everything Miller, which was what he needed, or thought he did, and he managed to arrange a date. It was fine. Good. He could do it. He'd prove he didn't need Miller.

(He knew he was wrong about that.)

He almost called off the idiotic date when Miller spoke to him about dreaming of Axehampton. She sounded so miserable, and all he managed to offer her was taking off early. She'd mocked his supportive boss, and he could only grimace, knowing that he _would_ have done better. His actual instinct wasn't to tell her to go home early. No, that was bloody stupid and he'd said it knowing it was, but he'd wanted nothing more than to pull her in his arms like he would have done Daisy or maybe Tess before she cheated on him and tell her that he'd die before he let that happen to her. He was—they were—going to find this rapist.

He knew he wouldn't do that any more than he would tell her how he felt, knowing he couldn't afford to lose her, as he surely would if she knew. He wasn't good with people, and having her as an almost friend was better than he'd done in years. He had to hold onto that. He'd thought things were good with Tess, and he'd been wrong, so he would be more careful with Miller.

And so he went on the bloody Tinder date.


End file.
